General Data Protection Regulation

A revolution is occurring in European banking and APIs are leading the way.

Adopted in 2007, the Payment Services Directive (PSD) “provides the legal foundation for an EU single market for payments, to establish safer and more innovative payment services across the EU.” Legislated by the European Commission, the objective of the PSD “is to make cross-border payments as easy, efficient and secure as ‘national’ payments within a Member State.”

To accommodate the rapid rise of new online payment providers – third-party payment providers (TPPs) – the European Commission proposed a revision in 2013. Building on the PSD’s key principles, PSD2 was ‘born’ to make payments safer and more secure, enhance consumer protection, foster innovation and promote competition while ensuring a level playing field for all payment service providers.

In force since 2016, EU Member States must implement PSD2 by January 2018.